WARNING: This article contains spoilers for The New Mutants, now in theaters.
The New Mutants sees five young mutants trapped in an abandoned hospital under the assumption they are learning how to control their newfound abilities. The kids believe when they learn to control their powers properly, Dr. Cecilia Reyes will transfer them to an institute where they will further learn how to use their abilities, even possibly the Xavier Institute, where they would have a chance to become X-Men.
However, as fans of the X-Men franchise know, this is not how Charles Xavier trains mutants. Even though there were unique cases where the young mutants had killed people in the past, the entire message rang false from the start. That is because the superior Reyes claimed she was dealing with throughout the movie was not Professor X, but was actually the Essex Corporation. As it turns out, Reyes was preparing these kids to become operatives for Essex.
When this revelation occurred in the movie, it was during a moment where Dani Moonstar unknowingly used her powers to see into the mind of Reyes, a mutant herself. Dani saw an institute training children as assassins, torturing them along the way. If that sounds similar, it's because Essex was running such an operation in Logan, a movie set years after the events of The New Mutants.
In Logan, Essex funding the Weapon X program, taking mutant DNA to create weapons, including Wolverine's clone, X-23. The facility that Dani was able to see in the memories of Reyes was very similar to the one seen in Logan, and it likely where that entire horrific institution got its start. While The New Mutants is the end of the line for the Fox X-Men universe, it's clear that before all of its delays, this movie was going to tie directly into what the franchise was building towards.
Throughout The New Mutants' turbulent road to release, little snippets of news would leak out about the film. One such leak was the news that Jon Hamm was at one point set to appear in the film as Mister Sinister, an iconic X-Men villain in the pages of Marvel Comics. Sinister was going to be the mastermind behind the Essex Corporation, working to accumulate an army of mutants using Reyes' institution. That ended up not being the case, however, and this plot thread will more than likely be left hanging as the X-Men characters transition into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Reyes' involvement in the plot of The New Mutants could also lead back to the Neverland storyline in the comics, which would go a long way in explaining why she was involved with Essex in the first place. In the comics, Reyes is not a villain at all, as she has always been a reluctant hero who just wanted to be left alone. However, at one time, she was forced to do things against her will.
First appearing in the pages of 2003's Weapon X, Neverland was a mutant concentration camp in Canada that was a cover for a Weapon X recruitment center. At one point, Reyes was captured and sent to the camp but was allowed to live since she could serve them as a doctor. However, her involvement ended in tragedy when over 6,000 mutants died when the camp was shut down.
In The New Mutants, Reyes appeared to want to help the kids until the moment she was ordered to execute Dani. She wanted to do it humanely, recalling her parent's roles as doctors. She also mentioned, curiously, that she was being "tested." It's important to remember that Dani's power is taking people's fears and creating physical creatures that can hurt them. So, when she looked into Reyes's mind, she was seeing the deepest fears of the doctor -- which was the Essex Corporation training center. With that in mind, it appears the movie was potentially pulling from Neverland, even if it didn't outright say it, making Reyes a truly tragic villain.
Directed and co-written by Josh Boone, The New Mutants stars Maisie Williams as Rahne Sinclair/Wolfsbane, Anya Taylor-Joy as Illyana Rasputin/Magik, Charlie Heaton as Sam Guthrie/Cannonball, Henry Zaga as Roberto da Costa/Sunspot, Blu Hunt as Danielle Moonstar/Mirage and Alice Braga as Dr. Cecilia Reyes. The film is in theaters now.